About Krank:

A Tale of Time Travel ...

It is November 11th, 2009. Ainsley Giddings steps aboard the ferry to Ward's Island. A forties-something psychotherapist on a self-imposed writing retreat, she has sublet a cottage for a year in which to think and write and clear her mind of Dan, her former lover.

Berlin playwright Bertolt Brecht, astonished at being restored to life, is on that same ferry boat. Having died in 1956, his heyday was in Berlin in the 1930s, an anti-fascist playwright whose provocative musicals like The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, made him a 'person of significance' to the emerging Nazi party. Suddenly, he has been brought back — given a second chance at life.

The stranger and Ainsley strike up a conversation and she discovers that not only is he unsure of that day's date, but of the year as well. Fascinating and unsettling.

Their acquaintance develops into a bizarre and eccentric love affair. But mixed in with the affair are island airport politics and eventually a civic uprising in downtown Toronto — in effect, the G-20 — which provokes a brutal repression by the police. This reminds Brecht of the 1930s resistance against Fascism in Berlin, especially when he is caught in the sweep by cops and thrown into a temporary jail with hundreds of others.

Ainsley's exertions at translating modern life to Brecht while trying to remain resolutely apolitical lead to their escape to Berlin where time takes another weird half-twist around these two mismatched lovers.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Standing on deck is AINSLEY GIDDINGS, an attractive woman in
her 40s.As the ferry reaches the
half-way mark, lines of tiredness recede from Ainsley’s face and are replaced
by an expression of calmness and anticipation.She is leaving something behind, and heading for something better; a
winter in a charming rented cottage…an
idyll of isolation and hard work, self-discovery and self renewal.

Ainsley is a psychotherapist, and she intends to write a
definitive text about her particular branch-- Gestalt Therapy.This kind of
therapy focuses on a client’s experience and emotions in the present, as
opposed to “talk therapy” which deals a lot with the past.To help her concentrate, she has referred all
her clients to colleagues.Also, she is
leaving behind an unsatisfactory ten-year relationship.A new beginning all around.

But her solitude is broken, even at this point, by an
encounter with a STRANGER on the ferry.A somewhat disheveled man, patting his pockets as though looking for
something.Ainsley offers to help, and
there is a brief conversation.He is
German, it seems.Mid-fifties, cultured
but curiously abrasive at the same time.Intriguing.Curiously, he asks
the date, which is not unusual.But
also, he wants to know what year it is.Which is definitely unusual.

When the ferry docks she encounters an old friend,
ELEANOR.Eleanor is a high-strung and
highly political woman who is involved in trying to prevent an airport and
other forms of commercialism from gaining a foothold on the island’s quaint
community.She attempts to get Ainsley
involved in a demonstration, but Ainsley demurs. She is not interested in
politics of any kind.

Ainley cleans up the tiny cottage and organizes her work
desk to start on her book.She types
“The idea of Gestalt Therapy is to change paper people into real people” –
Fritz Perls.”But, in a pattern of
interruptions that will never cease, she is interrupted by her phone.KENNY, a client, has attempted suicide, is in
hospital, and refuses to see anyone but her.So she breaks her rule and consents to a therapy session.

As if this is not enough interruption, her ex boyfriend
wants to see her, to sort out some belongings and to “talk”… always a bad sign
with DAN.Ainsley’s attempts at solitude
are being thwarted at every turn.

On the ferry back to town, where she is to meet her Dan, she
again encounters the German man.As a
psychotherapist, Ainsley prides herself on her ability to size people up at a
glance, and she decides this man is not only interesting but quite safe to talk
to.

As Ainsley does her best to resist intrusions by bossy
Eleanor, needy Dan, and her suicidal client, she becomes more and more
fascinated by the German man.He follows
her to a restaurant, where they talk more.He attempts to kiss her.She
pushes him away, but at the same time she is aware of an attraction.He is a little rough, he smells of sweat and
tobacco, and he is a blunt talker – in every way different from her squeaky
clean boyfriend.His name: Hauptmann.

But she has to write her book, and Ainsley struggles to be
free of all these interruptions.She
loses her temper with Eleanor, she is abrupt with Dan, she is competent but
impatient with her suicidal client, and she avoids the German.Until one night he shows up on her
doorstep.A little against her better
judgment she lets him in and gives him something to eat.He is fascinated by her computer and, in
particular, Google Earth.They focus in
on Berlin, where he studies the streets.He stays the night, though Ainsley has to rebuff a tentative seduction
on his part.

As conversations proceed, peppered by unfunny German jokes,
Ainsley begins to suspect that this fascinating German may not be who he
pretends.“Who are you?” she asks.
“Where are you from, what are you doing here?”He replies, “Meet me at the café on Tuesday, I will tell you
everything.”Clearly, he is protecting both
her and him by meeting on neutral ground.

And finally the truth comes out.Finally he says “My name is Brecht.I am Bertolt Brecht.”By this he means that he is the renowned
Berlin playwright from the 1930s, author of The
Threepenny Opera, with its song Mack
the Knife.Back then he was a
communist, persecuted by the Nazis.But, most startling to Ainsley, he points out that he died in 1956, and
has just found himself back to life on the Toronto Island Ferry.Some Canadian money in his pocket but no
I.D.He does not know why this has
happened except that Ainsley is part of it.This is too much.Ainsley
carefully backs away and escapes to the island.

Despite her efforts, by this point Ainsley has become too
distracted to do much work on her book.She takes long walks on the island, as the weather turns colder and the
days become shorter.She loves the empty
parks, little cottages, private boats and windswept shores. But then Hauptmann,
which may not be the man’s name any more than Brecht is his name, shows up one
morning.He waves a newspaper.There is a production of one of his works at
a local small theatre.The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
is being produced on a shoestring by an underground group calling itself the
“Poor Opera Company.”The storyline of
this “anti-opera” involves a complete inversion of society – the criminal class
is in charge: a clear political statement by Brecht. The newspaper review is
devastating, calling the production heavy handed.Ainsley, being resolutely apolitical, is not
really interested.Nevertheless, she
agrees to go.

She hopes her boyfriend Dan will not be there.Dan, a wannabe cultural expert, prides
himself on his knowledge of German theatre, and is in fact how Ainslie first
heard about Brecht a few years ago.She
desperately hopes Dan will not be at the performance, so of course he shows
up.They all sit through the show,
which is as bad as the newspaper critic said.But the evening becomes even more uncomfortable when Dan insists on telling
Ainsley and her German friend all about Brecht’s theatrical theories.Brecht mocks him with clever irony, which
escapes Dan entirely, and finally they part.As sometimes happens in underground theatre, there is more afterwards…
this time a singalong of famous Brecht songs, mostly set to music by Kurt
Weill.Inevitably, Mack The Knife..“Hauptmann” joins in and takes over, his shrill voice full of
intensity.Everyone stops and listens,
most of all Ainsley.

There is no question, this man is actually Bertolt Brecht.

They go back to the island together and spend the
night.His sexual hunger is almost
ferocious… after all, the last time he was in bed with a woman was more than 50
years ago.Ainsley too is hungry,
realizing that she had always wanted a man like this, a man unlike the
oh-so-polite-and-considerate Dan.She
loves the smell of this man, sweaty and real.

The affair goes on… bizarre, eccentric. Ainsley learns to
like German sausage and German beer, and even Brecht’s unusually harsh German
accent.Brecht wants to know all about
Ainsley and about Gestalt psychotherapy.It was, after all, invented by a German, Fritz Perls.And there are theatrical elements involved.

But this plays havoc with Ainley’s attempts to run her life.
When meeting with her suicidal client in the living room of the tiny cottage,
she has to kick Brecht out for a walk on the island.She wonders if her client can smell cigar
smoke, or the scent of lovemaking when, one morning, she does not have time to
shower.

Dan inevitably shows up, totally drunk.He really, really believes that he and
Ainsley can make a go of it again.He is
ready to admit he made mistakes, was self-absorbed, and he even breaks down and
pretty much begs her to give him another chance.But when he realizes that Brecht is there, he
knows his rejection is complete.

And finally, Eleanor keeps coming around.She is more and more angry about Island
politics, and is becoming more and more certain that exploitation of the island
by the airport is simply part of a global financial conspiracy.Eleanor is getting a little shrill, and
Ainsley doesn’t like it.

When Eleanor meets Brecht, she has no difficulty believing
his real identity, and she becomes obsessed with co-opting him to her
anti-Capitalist campaign.And not just
anti-Capitalist… Eleanor is starting to toss the word fascist around.
Reluctantly, Brecht agrees to discuss ways of opposing fascism.

But, once Brecht agrees to meet with Eleanor, he takes to
disappearing for days at a time.

At first, Ainsley welcomes the free time she has, time in
which to work on her book.In addition,
she has to prepare for a Gestalt conference that is about to take place, in, of
all places, Berlin.She works happily
for a while, but can’t help suspecting Brecht’s activities… it may not be
fascism that he is discussing with Eleanor.She confronts Brecht, and he claims that he is spending a lot of time in
town, hanging around the Poor Opera Company and working in his room.But Ainsley can see right through this.She becomes certain that Brecht and Eleanor
are getting it on, roughly and repeatedly.She pretends this doesn’t matter.The historical Brecht was a bastard with women, she knows that, so this
is just another decadent Berlin love triangle, bizarre and rather
interesting.But jealousy takes
hold.

A confrontation happens. Words are said, words are regretted
all around. But this is the way it is, and life must go on.

And the chief business of life, for Eleanor now, is to take
over the Island anti-airport group.She
asks Ainsley and Brecht to help her stage a takeover coup at the next general
meeting.Eleanor wants to chair the
meeting and run the organization.

The meeting is noisy and confrontational.Eleanor is shouted down and the coup fails.Eleanor is ashamed and Ainsley is
embarrassed.Brecht is faintly amused.

So, what to do next?Eleanor points out that there is an event about to take place in
Toronto, an economic summit.Leaders
from around the world are going to get together.There will be protests, demonstrations.Forget Island politics, that’s small
stuff.Let’s go for the big one.

(The “Summit”, of course, will be basically the Toronto G-20
of 2010, rearranged for dramatic purposes.A few people in black torched some police cars, which were left burning
as justification for the ensuing police crackdown.The police repression was called -- by the
Ontario Ombudsman no less -- “The most massive compromise of civil liberties in
Canadian history.”Intimidation,
brutality.A thousand arrests,
incarceration in intolerable conditions… and very few people actually
charged.Just look for the
youtubes:“Toronto G-20”)

Brecht offers to introduce Eleanor to the gang at the Poor
Opera Company.They intend to be active
at the Summit.

Brecht, Ainsley and Eleanor attend a strategy meeting at the
Poor Opera.There, they make useful
connections.And in an odd coincidence –
though there is no such thing as a coincidence in a story where a man springs
back to life after being dead for 50 years – there is a Bertolt Brecht
lookalike at the meeting; BARRY BRIARS.Eleanor finds him interesting, but more about this later.

The day of the Summit is a tragedy.The 3 friends join an anti-poverty march
advancing towards Queen’s park.It is entirely
organized and peaceful.Then some
marchers with earplugs attached to radios indicate that there has been some
trouble about 6 blocks away.A police
car has been torched by anarchists in black shirts.There is a trail of black smoke in the
distance.Then the crackdown:screaming cruisers, police on horseback, riot
gear, and, as the police move in on the demonstrators, clubs in the air.There is no escape, all side streets have
been blocked.Everyone is trapped.Brecht, in particular, is terrified, and hits
the ground.Eleanor shouts in protest,
only to be brought down by a club.Ainsley wants to intervene, but another protester advises that they try
to make a run for it.They escape in the
chaos, but not before Ainsley sees that Brecht and Eleanor have been forced
into a paddy wagon.There is blood
streaming down Eleanor’s face.

Next morning Aisley is back at her cottage.She paces the floor, not having slept all
night.Her phone rings.It is Brecht at the detention centre.He is being released, without charges being
laid.Just as she is leaving, Ainsley
gets another call.Eleanor is in the
hospital, with a black eye and stitches, under observation for a possible
concussion.

Ainsley picks up Brecht, who renews his desire to go back to
Berlin, or at least back to wherever he came from when he appeared on the deck
of the ferry.Coincidentally, in a story
where there is no such thing as a coincidence, Briars, the Brecht lookalike,
shows up.He is furious about the Summit
events and only too happy to help Brecht out.He agrees to give Brecht his own passport, and report it stolen in a
month’s time.

Ainsley and Brecht visit Eleanor at the hospital.She is beyond anger and fear, and is instead
coldly resolute to continue with serious activism.She is going to leave the island and join the
movement out in Vancouver.Occupy Wall
Street is in the process of getting organized.She hopes to go with the Brecht lookalike.

Ainsley and Brecht sort out their plans to go to
Berlin.

So, thinks Ainsley.This is the final act.This is
the end.I will take him back and never
see him again.All this trouble will be
over. Paradoxically, she orders him a return ticket. Maybe, just maybe,
somehow, it’s not over.

The two fly to Berlin, where Ainsley is about to be part of
a conference about Gestalt Therapy.But
Gestalt is the last thing on her mind right now.While Brecht goes on his own journey, Ainsley
explores the place.This is her first
visit.For the first time she sees, and
for the first time she understands, the grim reality of concentration camps,
execution rooms, the Gestapo, German fascism.She sees, and intuitively experiences, the world that Brecht came out
of.If Brecht is cautious about
protesting authority, she now knows why.

Ainsley and Brecht walk down a deserted street, and Ainsley
all of a sudden is aware of a police presence.After the Summit, she has become extremely sensitive to power in
uniform.But this time she is alarmed to
see that the police are Nazi Brownshirts.These were the thugs that Hitler used to intimidate his way to the
top.Is this a time warp?Has Brecht taken her back to the 30s?We don’t know yet.

Ainsley and Brecht find a crowded café.The people in it are dressed in a
contemporary way, but the café itself has not changed in decades.The two order a characteristic German meal
when, once again, the Brownshirts appear.They talk to the cashier at the front, as if gathering information.Ainsley is scared, Brecht starts to
sweat.Hoping against hope, Ainsley asks
Brecht, “Are these actors?Is there a
Nazi film being shot around here?”Brecht replies, in an even voice, “No actors are that good.”Clearly the past has invaded the present, and
the two decide to get out of the café as quickly as possible.

Needless to say, Ainsley is no longer apolitical.

On the street, they walk quickly.Brecht intends to show her where he is
buried: a small cemetery overlooked by a residence he shared with his
wife.They walk steadily, knowing they
are about to encounter destiny.They
stop and sit near the gravestones, exhausted.There are two gravestones: Helene Weigel, Bertolt Brecht.

And all of a sudden, Brecht vanishes.

Ainsley takes out the return ticket, folds it carefully, and
buries in the ground beside Brecht’s gravestone.

He is gone, out of her life.Back at the hotel she finds that all evidence of his presence has also
disappeared.And there is a complete
emptiness in Ainsley’s life.

Is this the new start? Is this the new beginning she was
looking for when she boarded the ferry all those months ago?

She takes out her notebook and reads the first page “The
idea of Gestalt Therapy is to change paper people into real people.”

Sunday, December 15, 2013

I just loved this book. A Canadian author, headed on a ferry for an Toronto island retreat runs into Bertolt Brecht. THE Bertolt Brecht. And the two have hot chemistry radiating out of their every dialogue. Which is to say nothing of the sex scenes. Or the political climate... Sheard is artful in her creation of a rich and life-like realism that is full of feeling, yet never abandons the rhythm and clarity of good old fashioned story telling. All in the name of brightly woven fiction the story moves seamlessly from the highly theoretical to the deeply personal to the alienatingly political. Whether in a secluded cabin or a political rally, Sheard's protagonist--Ainsley--is at constant struggle and play with the tension between her needs as an individual and the context of the whole in which she finds herself. You really get the feel that the challenges she's up against, although both striking and admirable, are all together daily and deeply human. In the character of Brecht, Ainsley's equal and lover, you'll get all of the intelligence, romance, low-brow humanism and brooding mystery you could ever hope to find in a quasi-modern-day Heathcliff. Read. This. Book.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

This column was written by Edward Greenspon, Sunday, August 4/2013
I’m just back from a week in the capital of Nazi Germany. At least it felt that way.
I had been to Berlin many times before between 1985 and 1991, first as a student and then as a journalist. On my early visits, a voice would whisper incessantly in my ear, “What did he do during the war?” Once, while covering a news event, a German journalist inquired of me, “Greenspon, is that a Jewish name?” I hesitated. It’s not the kind of question that sits easily in the Germany of your mind.
I got to know a couple named Harry and Erika. He spoke some French, learned as a PoW in a French coal mine after he was thrown into the front lines at 16. It wasn’t impossible to imagine Harry, too, as a victim of irresistible and insane forces.
The dominant theme of the day for a working journalist was the East-West missile buildup. Berlin, an end-of-the-line western enclave in the Communist east, served as the pointy end of the Cold War.
When the geopolitical ground shifted on Nov. 9, 1989, I was in Moscow, making me probably one of the last westerners to learn the Berlin Wall had fallen. I made it back to Berlin in the run-up to a particularly festive December and returned several more times as the two Germanys reunited. On my last visit, I wrote of post-unification Berlin’s struggle for a new identity. “No longer the city of Le Carré. No longer the faceoff circle between East and West. No longer the last outpost of freedom. Four decades of clichés, of comprehension, rendered meaningless in an instant.” How would Berlin, shorn of prefixes East and West, redefine itself?
Two decades slipped by. The Berlin I encountered this time was a funky, self-assured place. I stayed in the Mitte, a quarter bursting its seams with a lively street life. The Berlin of the present is an effervescent city. But the Berlin of the past, particularly the Nazi past, has bubbled back to the surface.
Cold War Berlin had little, besides its division, to say about its 12-year plunge into infamy. The new Berlin has aggressively addressed the catalogue of horrors Germany inflicted on the world, particularly the Jewish people. Extraordinary exhibits at the Topography of Terror, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, the Jewish Museum and elsewhere invite deep reflection. As the Italian Holocaust writer Primo Levi is cited in the entrance hall at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews: “It happened, therefore it can happen again; this is the core of what we have to say.”
I was particularly struck by the lessons to be drawn from 1933 and 1934, when the Nazis were not yet at full swagger. Arguably, as the depths of their hatreds quickly surfaced, they could have been tripped up by foreign pressures and a modicum of domestic spine. But elite opinion and statecraft took the passive course of hoping the accidental chancellor would fall to his own excesses. When he didn’t, foreign powers sought to mollify rather than confront him.
How wrong they were. The Nazis went after the Communists and Social Democrats first, creating the Dachau concentration camp as early as March 1933. Trade unionists, the mentally handicapped, the Roma and the Jews, especially the Jews, would follow in short order. The infamous Aryan law “permanently retiring” Jews from the public service — meaning firing them and voiding their pensions — was passed in 1933, followed by measures against Jewish lawyers and doctors. An edifice of state terror unique in its efficiency was constructed brick-by-brick while the people “Heiled” and an economically distracted world with little affection of its own for the Jewish people looked away.
Berlin reminds us that democracy is a precious and a complex garden that requires constant care. It consists of much, much more than free and fair elections. It is everything that happens afterward: constitutional solidity, rule of law, an independent judiciary, checks and balances, a free press, protection of human rights, particularly for minorities.
Democracy is not meant to be the most efficient of systems. It is meant to disperse power through multiple points, preventing too much of a good thing residing at any given time in too few hands. Inefficiency is aggravating and costly, but too much efficiency, an open invitation to abuses of power, is also cause for concern.
Societies that chip away at human rights and democratic principles, as with Russia today, must be confronted and challenged. Opposition and dissent must be respected. We owe it to history to call out concentrations of power — political and economic — and even minor incursions on the normal course checks and balances.
None of this because something awful is necessarily afoot. Rather because totalitarianism rarely starts out total. Berlin is testament that it must be confronted before it can become whole.
Edward Greenspon is vice-president, strategic investments, at the Star. egreenspon@thestar.ca
Edward Greenspon is vice-president, strategic investments, at the Star.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

At your suggestions, I'm launching the KRANK newsletter, posting issues of interest to fiction lovers and civil libertarians. I'll also post regular updates on my readings and performances of KRANK.
Simply email me at jumpstarting@gmail.com As thanks for signing up to my newsletter, I will email you a free chapter of KRANK.

Today is your last opportunity to catch LAB CAB, the glorious FREE festival of short presentations of music, dance, theatre, comedy, kids' stuff etc. happening all across the Parkdale neighbourhood.

As part of LAB CAB, I'll be doing a 20-minute performance (with actor David Bolt) of KRANK's Dialogued Encounters between Toronto Gestalt therapist Ainsley
Giddings and Commie playwright Bertolt Brecht who died in the 1950s.
Brecht has mysteriously been reincarnated on a Toronto Island ferry
boat, just in time for the G20 riots.Masaryk-Cowan Community Recreation Centre (Activity Room #1)